To mark the arrival of the Metiers d’Arts Paris-Londres Collection, Chanel will be available, from today until 26 June, at London’s Dover Street Market.
This is particularly newsworthy for, although Comme des Garçon’s London store has already become the prize positioning for otherwise-hard-to-come-by brands like Pierre Hardy, Azzedine Alaïa and Ganyru, Chanel is notoriously precious about guarding their distribution (the ready-to-wear collection is only ever sold through Chanel boutiques and Chanel concessions, bar one exception when some pieces were sold at Colette back in 2003).

The Metiers d’Arts Paris-Londres Collection was shown at a special fashion show in London in December at the Phillips de Pury headquarters in Victoria. The collection is a special showcase for the decorative crafts of the Parisian ateliers that have worked with Chanel for decades (and that the company have recently acquired): Desrues the costume jewellers, Lesage the embroiderers, milliner Michel, feather artisan Lemarié, cobbler Massaro, floral designer Guillet, and silversmith Goosens.
As breaking their rules about distribution is such a major move for the brand, the collections arrival is anything but low key, more of an total invasion and a complete integration into the entire store, from Rose Bakery right at the top right down to the shop windows on Dover Street. A special visual team from Paris, who normally work on the fashion show sets, have left their mark throughout the store.
The Artek chairs that normally bedeck the café have been replaced with the spindly chairs that mimicked dressing room chairs topped with coat hangers with intertwining C’s, first made for the show. The magazines (including Wallpaper*) have been brushed aside for two weeks and replaced with an entire library of tomes on Chanel. The view from the roof terrace is now a billboard, on an adjoining roof, featuring a pink Eiffel Tower with a life-size cut out of Karl Lagerfeld (a further 20 are distributed through out the store).
Also on Four is a bag and fragrance bar, featuring limited edition bags in Union jack patterns. The third floor features a corner with jewellery made by Desrues the costume jewellers including a jewelled vest that will set you back 30,000 pounds. The second floor has a selection of men’s knitwear and on one there are the adorable bowler hats (watch them be the first to sell out).
Downstairs, Chanel have built a little French house complete with TV aerial and chimney. The maison comes with a stall set up outside, under a white awning with a fabulous collection of accessories and jewellery, including belts with the houses intertwining C’s in Union Jack enamel and earrings with tiny red Routemaster buses. Apparently Mademoiselle Chanel herself used to have stall tables outside her Paris store selling perfumes.
The whole thing, brilliantly done of course, seems completely at home amongst the avant-guard merchandise of Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe and Christopher Kane - which illustrates the depth of the allure and appeal of Chanel.

LESS IS MORE: The new Jil Sander store in Manhattan takes a novel approach to merchandising — no merchandise displays

Quote:

It's About...Nothingby Alix Browne

Visitors to the new Jil Sander store, which opened last week on the corner of Howard and Crosby Streets in SoHo, might be surprised to walk in and find the place totally empty.

Not a bag, shoe, or double-faced cashmere coat in sight.

The design of the store, which will, in theory, serve as the template for other Jil Sander stores, was a collaboration between Raf Simons, who has been the creative director of the minimalist luxury brand since 2005, and Germaine Kruip, a 38-year-old Dutch artist who creates quiet, meditative works using little more than space and light. “Germaine’s work is very subtle,”
Simons says. “Very often people don’t even notice it’s there.”

The vast ground floor, which is entered from Howard Street, is anchored at each end with a system of louvers that rotate at regular intervals to enclose the entire space in whiteness or open it up to reflected glimpses of the outside. Kruip refers to this architectural intervention as the creation of a “mind space.” And in fact, the space functions as a sort of portal — a conceptual air lock that allows you to smoothly acclimate from the borderland of Canal Street to the promise of a world where clean lines are next to godliness. Whether customers are indeed inspired to pause long enough to take it all in, or pass right through to the grand marble staircase and up to the second floor where the various Jil Sander collections are actually displayed, or simply turn around and walk out the door confused — remains to be seen.

Simons says he likes to think of this ground-floor space as a “laboratorium” — a vital project room as opposed to a sterile gallery — that can be programmed and configured every six weeks. Eventually it may contain mannequins dressed in the new collection from Milan, or the multimedia accouterments of a new fragrance campaign, or even actual merchandise.

“There has been a lot of talk about the evolution of retail environments,” Simons says.

“But to me, it feels right to do something with space and light that breathes. I think it’s a form of luxury not to open the door and get hit over the head with a bag.”

The new Maria Luisa store in Paris is inspired by the art collector Ghislain Mollet-Viéville.

Laurent Buttazzoni and Frederic Lavaud challenged themselves to give the store a modern environment by neither overloading the space, nor making it look too insignificant.

Their main inspiration was found in the apartment of Ghislain Mollet-Viéville, a conceptual art collector. Just like this apartment, various parts of the store are seperated by three primary colours. It gives the shop the illusion of three painting that would embellish an apartment. These colours highly contrast with the dominant charcoal-grey and white and give meaning to the various clothing and accesoires that can be bought at the store.

the jil sander store is really incredible, it really doesn't come across in photos.

yes its quite sterile, maybe cold, but once you enter it feels almost like a cathedral, very silent and incredibly beautiful. the spinning mirrors are a great addition, last time i went was around noon and it reflected the sunlight around the room, spinning and spinning...

I would love to see more photos of the Jil Sander store too...I bought the lastest Frame magazine...the issue concentrates on retail spaces...I'll scan the Balenciaga (Italy & LA interior) article...and Givenchy article (Paris store)...my favourite brands...quite an interesting read too..they also showed the Yohji Yomato (sp?)...but the interior is so boring...expect the scans around Tuesday